True Grit Movie Review & Film Summary (2010) | Roger Ebert Tweet In the Coen Brothers' “True Grit,” Jeff Bridges is not playing the John Wayne role. He's playing the Jeff Bridges role — or, more properly, the role created in the enduring novel by Charles Portis , much of whose original dialogue can be heard in this film. Bridges doesn't have the archetypal stature of the Duke. Few ever have. But he has here, I believe, an equal screen presence. We always knew we were looking at John Wayne in the original “ True Grit ” (1969). When we see Rooster Cogburn in this version, we're not thinking about Jeff Bridges. Advertisement Wayne wanted his tombstone to read, Feo, Fuerte y Formal (Ugly, Strong and Dignified). He was a handsome, weathered man when I met him in the 1960s and '70s, but not above a certain understandable vanity. Roo­ster might be an ornery gunslinger with an eye patch, but Wayne played him wearing a hairpiece and a corset. Jeff Bridges occupies the character like a homeless squatter.

I found myself wondering how young Mattie Ross ( Hailee Steinfeld ) could endure his body odor. Bridges' interpretation is no doubt closer to the reality of a lawman in those years of the West. How savory can a man be when he lives in saloons and on horseback? Not all riders on the range carried a change of clothes. Of course he's a lawman with an office and a room somewhere in town, but for much of the movie, he is on a quest through inauspicious territory to find the man who murdered Mattie's father. As told in the novel, Mattie is a plucky young teen with a gaze as level as her hat brim. She hires Marshal Cogburn to track down that villain Tom Chaney ( Josh Brolin ). She means to kill him for “what he done.” If Bridges comfortably wears the Duke's shoes, Hailee Steinfeld is more effective than Kim Darby in the earlier film, and she was pretty darn good. Steinfeld was 13 when she made the film, close to the right age. Darby was a little over 20.

The story hinges on the steely resolve of a girl who has been raised in the eye-for-an eye Old West, seen some bad sights and picked up her values from the kind of old man who can go and get hisself shot. Advertisement What strikes me is that I'm describing the story and the film as if it were simply, if admirably, a good Western. That's a surprise to me, because this is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It's a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder. Their casting is always inspired and exact. The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western. But this isn't a Coen Brothers film in the sense that we usually use those words. It's not eccentric, quirky, wry or flaky. It's as if these two men, who have devised some of the most original films of our time, reached a point where they decided to coast on the sheer pleasure of good old straightforward artistry. This is like Iggy Pop singing “My Funny Valentine,” which he does very well. So let me praise it for what it is, a splendid Western.

The Coens having demonstrated their mastery of many notes, including many not heard before, now show they can play in tune. Besides, isn't Rooster Cogburn where Jeff Bridges started out 40 years ago? The first time I was aware of him was in “ The Last Picture Show ” (1971), where he and his friends went the local movie theater to see “ Red River ,” starring John Wayne. Since then, that clean-faced young man has lived and rowdied and worked his way into being able to play Rooster with a savory nastiness that Wayne could not have equaled. Advertisement All the same, the star of this show is Hailee Steinfeld, and that's appropriate. This is her story, set in motion by her, narrated by her. This is Steinfeld's first considerable role. She nails it. She sidesteps the opportunity to make Mattie adorable. Mattie doesn't live in an adorable world. Seeing the first “True Grit,” I got a little crush on Kim Darby. Seeing this one, few people would get a crush on Hailee Steinfeld. Maybe in another movie.

But the way she plays it with the Coens, she's more the kind of person you'd want guarding your back. Matt Damon , Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper have weight and resonance in supporting roles. Damon is LaBoeuf, the Texas Ranger who comes along for a time to track Tom Chaney. Glen Campbell had the role earlier, and was right for the tone of that film. Damon plays it on a more ominous note. His LaBoeuf isn't sidekick material. He and Cogburn have long-standing issues. Nor, we discover, is LaBoeuf a man of simple loyalty. As Tom Chaney, Brolin is a complete and unadulterated villain, a rattlesnake who would as soon shoot Mattie as Rooster. In the Western genre, evil can be less nuanced than in your modern movies with all their psychological insights. Barry Pepper plays Lucky Ned Pepper, leader of a gang Chaney ends up with, and part of the four-man charge across the meadow into Rooster's gunfire, a charge as lucky for them as the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Advertisement The 1969 film, directed by Hollywood veteran Henry Hathaway , had glorious landscapes. The meadow and several other scenes were set in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, near Telluride. This film's landscapes are all in Texas, and although some are beautiful, many are as harsh and threatening as the badlands described by Cormac McCarthy or Larry McMurtry . I expect Bridges and Stein­feld have good chances of winning Oscar nominations for this film. Steinfeld is good the whole way through, but the scene audiences love is the one where she bargains with a horse trader ( Dakin Matthews ) for the money she feels is owed her. Here the key is the dialogue by the Coens, which never strains, indeed remains flat and common sense, as Mattie reasons the thief out of his money by seeming to employ his own logic. I'm surprised the Coens made this film, so unlike their other work, except in quality. Instead of saying that now I hope they get back to making “Coen Brothers films,” I'm inclined to speculate on what other genres they might approach in this spirit. What about the musical? “Oklahoma!” is ready to be remade.

Advertisement True Grit (2010) - Movies & TV on Google Play True Grit (2010) Item added to wishlist. Item removed from wishlist. You will receive an email when your movie becomes available. You will not be charged until it is released. ( 1,654) Synopsis True Grit is a powerful story of vengeance and valor set in an unforgiving and unpredictable frontier where justice is simple and mercy is rare. Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), is determined to avenge her father's blood by capturing Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who shot and killed him for two pieces of gold. Just fourteen, she enlists the help of Rooster Cogburn (Academy Award Winner Jeff Bridges), a one-eyed, trigger-happy U.S. Marshall with an affinity for drinking and hardened Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Academy Award Winner Matt Damon) to track the fleeing Chaney. Despite their differences, their ruthless determination leads them on a perilous adventure that can only have one outcome: retribution. My review It could be the Coens' most straightforward film, but it's also one of their best.

Richard Corliss The tense verbal comedy of Mattie's early negotiation with a Fort Smith merchant should win you over to this movie's high linguistic wit. David Denby Nothing very startling happens, but the Coens have a sure hand, and Bridges, in the old John Wayne role, plays a man, not a myth; you can sense Rooster's stink and his nasty intelligence, too. Christopher Orr The real reason to see the film is the work of the Coens' regular collaborators, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Carter Burwell, who supply the visual and auditory landscapes that are True Grit's most notable achievement. Joe Morgenstern Joel Coen and Ethan Coen fill the film with self-conscious good humor-hey, it's the Coen brothers-and the charmingly old-fashioned locutions of the Charles Portis novel. Amy Nicholson The Bible argues an eye for an eye. But as Rooster Cogburn doesn't have an eye to spare, the movie needs to ask if their death quest is worth the risk. Critic reviews Full Review Richard Corliss The tense verbal comedy of Mattie's early negotiation with a Fort Smith merchant should win you over to this movie's high linguistic wit.

Full Review David Denby Nothing very startling happens, but the Coens have a sure hand, and Bridges, in the old John Wayne role, plays a man, not a myth; you can sense Rooster's stink and his nasty intelligence, too. Full Review Christopher Orr The real reason to see the film is the work of the Coens' regular collaborators, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Carter Burwell, who supply the visual and auditory landscapes that are True Grit's most notable achievement. Full Review Joe Morgenstern Joel Coen and Ethan Coen fill the film with self-conscious good humor-hey, it's the Coen brothers-and the charmingly old-fashioned locutions of the Charles Portis novel. Full Review Amy Nicholson The Bible argues an eye for an eye. But as Rooster Cogburn doesn't have an eye to spare, the movie needs to ask if their death quest is worth the risk. User reviews Danny November 14, 2015 This movie! The girl in this movie wrote a song about touching herself talk about awkward, its a pop song-- Jeff Bridges and Josh Brolin saved this movie from Matt Damon's performance. Did anyone actually believe he came from Texas?

Didn't think so. Full Review Todd Walker November 15, 2014 Horrific!! He had the patch over the wrong eye!?? Lol! What an unforgivable sin. Truly horrific movie. I'll recommend the original though! Full Review Chris Condon September 9, 2014 Acting is OK, but storyline is boring The movie has decent acting, but the storyline has no memorable scenes in it. You will watch this movie once and forget it 10 minutes after it is finished. Overall a 3 star movie Full Review D. Crandall October 28, 2014 A personal favorite! I usually don't enjoy westerns, however, this is not only a fantastic flick it is also in my top 50 favorites! Full Review kenneth davis December 8, 2014 Can't redo a Big John Wayne movie NO actor can come close to the Dukes way of cowboys just ain't gonna happen stop trying! ! Made Jeff look bad sorry. Full Review Sarahann Catania August 16, 2016 Awful remake! Complete dud.

This remake isn't worth the time to watch and sure isn't worth a nickel to view. Bad acting. Cast wasn't chosen well. Original was great and the original book is good. Read for yourself. Full Review Thomas Lofton June 15, 2013 For those of us able to.. For those of us able to take off the rose colored glasses and stop thinking everything from the old days is better. This movie is better than the over rated John Wayne's original. The old movie is not bad but they are definitely over rated because of nostalgia Darek Prochaska November 16, 2014 regret not seeing it sooner great movie! One to own. Full Review Cliff Clerval December 17, 2014 Coen Bros did a good job As of now I still hadn't seen the original, but I really liked this film Full Review Corey Orner February 11, 2016 Can't bare to watch it. John Wayne is a Legend. When he was alive, you wouldn't hit him unless he told you to. Remaking one of his, no, ANY of his movies, is like punching him square in the face, after he told you not to.

Full Review james white November 6, 2014 True Grit It did slow towards the end, but the lead performances were well worth the price of admission! Jeff Bridges did some amazing work! Full Review john wayne stambaugh March 31, 2016 How is this not a 5*?!?! Amazingly well done. Seriously, look at my name. Sure, it's a remake, and on occasion it is verbatim from the original, but, let's remove nostalgia from the equation... This movie stands on its own perfectly. Bridges is a mean, believable and awesome Rooster. Maddy is the best young actress you'll see. Damon plays his part well, and although the climax is quick, it's perfect and eluded to early. I love John Wayne, he's my namesake. Jeff Bridges plays the part better. Screw nostalgia. Full Review A Google User June 8, 2012 Movie ok It ok movie but sad see how whites treatment of natives Americans back than that long do not like it all Full Review Paul Plummer August 14, 2014 Decent Riveting first act. Then it slows down a bit.

A decent, though brief, climax. But the ending was pretty meh. Not worthy of it's characters. reibs snowbord September 7, 2015 Amazing but bad finish Last ten min killed it for me Full Review Florence Susan August 29, 2015 True Grit is truly great Didn't even recognize Matt Damon. Jeff Bridges is the best of the best. I loved the girl, too. Great story well told! Why are people mentioning John Wayne? He couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. Full Review john moore August 18, 2015 Original Movie Is Way Better Than This Junk, Not A Classic At All, The Duke Has Nothing To Worry About. Full Review Brandi Mattison March 4, 2015 Fresh/unpredictable This movie features a rare kind of young female. I loved the story and the depiction of a girl w true grit. Eshaunda Howard October 25, 2015 Love it!! A truly funny movie makes me smile makes me laugh. Full Review H. Ellis November 30, 2014 Good movie. Acting was great.

You felt the pain and loss of the characters. Liked Matt Damon in this. Full Review Mark Richmond June 9, 2015 This version was good & perhaps more realistic, but I found myself straining to understand what Bridges was saying half the time. Full Review Casey Christian May 11, 2016 I love Westerns. I very much enjoyed the 1st True Grit movie with John Wayne. Well worth watching this one too. We need more westerns. Western human dramas tap into our past history. Lets not forget! Full Review J Schippnick June 18, 2013 Loved the original, but this one will do. I grew up as a fan of the original book, a fan of nearly every John Wayne film there is, but something about this film is just so right. Full Review Marc Morgan February 4, 2016 Truly Gritty! This is one of the best remakes ever. Hailee is magnificent, as is Jeff Bridges. The old-time piano score was perfect. Are we dealing again? Full Review Zenn Lutinsky July 26, 2015 Slow burn This is a film worth watching, does justice to the original.

Gritty western drama with great characters, especially the young female lead. Full Review Teresa Perdomo August 25, 2014 & the young girl was absolutely amazing !!! True grit. Jeff bridges. Great from start to finish ! Outdid John Waynes version buy a mile. A must see. Nolan Rohrer June 27, 2016 Sorry...I never was a fan vv lowdown walkbehinders...let john wayne movies be...he can't be redone Full Review Brian Lee June 29, 2013 Excellent Movie I'm not a big fan of Westerns, but this is one of the movies that have changed that. Full Review Kristina Da Silva August 8, 2013 Very well done. I read the novel shortly after watching this remake and I have to say much of it was spot on! Great acting, good story and very humorus. Definitly worth a watch. Full Review Josh Wood August 7, 2014 A Worthy Weekend Romp It probably won't be one of your favorite movies of all time but it's definitely worth watching. It's very entertaining, well written and well acted.

Full Review Shane Richards April 10, 2014 Good Remake Jeff Bridges really out done himself in this movie. He's not the Duke for All you John Wayne Lovers. But still Jeff played a very good roll. Full Review J Jazzie Martin August 5, 2014 True grit a great remake of the old john wayne movie ..... if you like westerns this would be a good one to add to your library of movies .. Dagoberto Ruiz June 17, 2013 Nice! Really enjoyed this, I had my doubts but its good. Full Review Bo Staff August 23, 2016 Similar, with some plot change I liked both old and new Grits. Jeff Bridges did a good job. Full Review Shawn Buren April 7, 2015 Westerns The only westerns I liked was tombstone and open range this one sucks like most western movies Full Review John Becknell July 15, 2015 Great movie Jeff Bridges transformation was amazing. Matt Damon was also great here. An interesting story with memorable characters. Full Review Guy Johnson November 30, 2014 Funny! Well done! Great story.

Well defined characters, and we'll placed humor! Jeff Bridges made it for me. Loved it! Full Review Harriet Osei Twerefour November 10, 2014 Great Movie This movie was absolutely great. Its great for learning more about the wild west and definitely not boring. Full Review denise s October 5, 2014 "True Grit" Maybe the most forthright and plain of the Coen's movies, but beautiful to hear and to watch. Gilbert Downie September 27, 2014 True Grit I liked it more than the John Wayne version.Jeff Bridges gave an outstanding performance. ‘True Grit’ From Coen Brothers, With Jeff Bridges - Review - The New York Times The New York Times Movies |Wearing Braids, Seeking Revenge Search Movies | Movie Review | 'True Grit' Wearing Braids, Seeking Revenge Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Adventure, Drama, Western Continue reading the main story Photo Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges in the Coen brothers’ remake of “True Grit,” the 1960s western.

Credit Lorey Sebastian/Paramount Pictures That old-time American religion of vengeance runs like a river through “True Grit,” a comic-serious tale about some nasty, brutish times. Beautifully adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from the parodic western novel by Charles Portis, it turns on a 14-year-old Arkansas girl who hires a “one-eyed fat man” to hunt down her father’s killer. First published in 1968, Mr. Portis’s tall tale was brought to the screen the next year custom-fitted for John Wayne, who rode the role of that fat man, Rooster Cogburn, straight to an Oscar. Now it’s the thinner scene-stealer Jeff Bridges who sits and sometimes drunkenly slumps in the saddle. Much as he did in the raucously entertaining original film directed by Henry Hathaway, Rooster enters on his best behavior, seated in a courtroom amid a fog of cigar smoke and conspicuous lies. The pale, ghostly light comes courtesy of the Coens’ frequent cinematographer, Roger Deakins , while many of the twisty, funny sentences have been plucked by the filmmakers right from the novel.

A deputy United States marshal, Rooster has attracted the interest of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld, in a terrific film debut), a half-pint who, with her bloodlust and severely braided hair, is an authentic American Gothic . As she listens to Rooster recount his bloody deeds and high body count, her eyes shine with a true believer’s excitement. Avenging her father and keeping close track of her family’s expenses are what preoccupy Mattie, a richly conceived and written eccentric, as memorable on the page as she is now on screen. Softened for the first film (in which she was played by a 21-year-old Kim Darby, in a bob), she has been toughed up again by the Coens so that she resembles the seemingly humorless if often unintentionally humorous Scripture-quoting martinet of Mr. Portis’s imagination. At times she brings to mind D. H. Lawrence’s famed formulation that “the essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer.” At other times, as when she wears her dead father’s oversize coat and hat, she looks like a foolish child left to perilous play.

Those dangers are telegraphed early by the public hanging that occurs soon after the story opens. Mattie, along with a family worker, Yarnell (Roy Lee Jones), has traveled from her Yell County home to Fort Smith, Ark., to identify her father, who has been gunned down by another worker, Tom Chaney ( Josh Brolin ). After doing so, she sends Yarnell home and gets down to business, first by settling her father’s accounts. She then hires Rooster because she hears that he has “true grit,” a quality that mostly seems to entail a disregard for preserving the lives of his prisoners. It’s no wonder she watches the hanging with such avidity, and no wonder too that she takes off after Chaney, armed with Rooster and her father’s heavy gun. Continue reading the main story Their journey leads them into Indian country (with few Indians) and increasingly tense and violent encounters featuring corpses, severed fingers and a bad, bad man ( Barry Pepper , spewing fear and spittle). On occasion a Texas Ranger , LaBoeuf ( Matt Damon ), who calls himself LaBeef, joins in the search.

Wearing jangling spurs and a luxurious mustache that sits on his lip like a spoiled Persian cat, LaBoeuf hopes to bag Chaney for a large reward. Dead or alive, everyone in this story — snaggletooth thief or boardinghouse owner — has a price either on his head or in mind, usually in the form of the dollars and cents one person hopes to extract from another. “Why do you think I am paying you,” Mattie asks Rooster, “if not to have my way?” The Coens deliver that line with a touch so light you might not even notice its sting. They have been surprisingly faithful to the tone and idiomatic tang of Mr. Portis’s novel, perhaps because its worldview suits their ironic purposes. The whiskey-soaked Rooster still likes to “pull a cork,” as he does in the book, and the Coens and Mr. Bridges get into the boozy spirit of things with slurs and pratfalls. Despite Mr. Bridges’s showy turn, the movie opens and closes with Mattie’s voice-over, which shifts the story away from Rooster and back to her.

The Coens also restore the novel’s framing device: “True Grit” isn’t just the story of a gutsy 14-year-old; it is her story as called from the memory of the woman (Elizabeth Marvel) she became. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The Coens opened their last film, “A Serious Man,” about a 1960s Minneapolis professor who endures trials worthy of Job, with an enigmatic short story about a 19th-century tale involving a possible dybbuk. That story is prefaced with a quotation attributed to the medieval Jewish scholar Rashi (“Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”) that appears in a 19th-century comic story, “The Gilgul, or The Wandering Soul,” about a dybbuk, or restless spirit, that inhabits a person. In “True Grit” the Coens switch to Solomon, opening the film with the first half of Proverbs 28:1 (“The wicked flee when none pursueth”), a line Mattie quotes early in the novel. Like Mr.

Portis, they notably omit the second line: “But the righteous are bold as a lion.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Mr. Portis’s book hit in 1968, in the midst of a pop-cultural cycle that, partly fueled by the Vietnam war, was revisiting the cowboy myth with degrees of cynicism and nostalgia. “True Grit” sticks to the western template, but with characters who, at least initially, fall far short of the heroic ideal of the type that Wayne himself embodied for decades. Yet no matter how roguish (and laughable) in the novel, Rooster can’t help registering as a larger-than-life hero on screen because the legend who played him, by then a survivor of cancer and countercultural assaults (for the jingoistic “Green Berets”), had played his role for so long. When Wayne won best actor for “True Grit,” it was for playing John Wayne.

The first “True Grit” opened in New York in early July 1969, a week after “The Wild Bunch,” the Sam Peckinpah western that’s widely seen as a metaphor about interventionist follies like Vietnam and that remains an enduring evisceration of the genre. The Coens, who like to play with genre, often with giggles and winks, haven’t mounted an assault on the western. But in Mattie they have created a character whose single-minded pursuit of vengeance has unmistakable resonance. In the first “True Grit,” when Rooster watches Mattie cross a river on horseback, he jocularly says, “She reminds me of me.” The line isn’t in the remake, but from the long, hard look Rooster gives her now, it’s clear that she still does, for better and worse. In classic Coen style, the brothers punctuate the image of Mattie riding to dry ground with a cutaway to a slack-jawed Rooster, his mouth agape in wonder. By the time the scene ends, the mood has switched again, and Rooster has drawn his gun on LaBoeuf in deadly seriousness. (Mr.

Damon plays the designated clown with grace, as Mr. Bridges slides between buffoonery and malice.) In some ways, much like Charles Laughton’s “Night of the Hunter,” which the Coens quote both musically and visually, “True Grit” is a parable about good and evil. Only here, the lines between the two are so blurred as to be indistinguishable, making this a true picture of how the West was won, or — depending on your view — lost. “True Grit” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Three severed digits and several holes to the head. TRUE GRIT Opens on Wednesday nationwide. Written and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen , based on the novel by Charles Portis; director of photography, Roger Deakins ; edited by Roderick Jaynes; music by Carter Burwell; production design by Jess Gonchor; costumes by Mary Zophres; produced by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen and Scott Rudin; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

WITH: Jeff Bridges (Rooster Cogburn), Matt Damon (LaBoeuf), Josh Brolin (Tom Chaney), Barry Pepper (Lucky Ned Pepper), Hailee Steinfeld (Mattie Ross), Bruce Green (Harold Parmalee), Roy Lee Jones (Yarnell) and Elizabeth Marvel (adult Mattie). True Grit True Grit (2010) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV A tough U.S. Marshal helps a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer.

Directors: a list of 33 titles created 03 Feb 2011 a list of 43 images created 19 Feb 2011 a list of 47 titles created 28 Sep 2013 a list of 29 titles created 21 Apr 2015 a list of 26 titles created 11 Jul 2015 Search for " True Grit " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 10 Oscars. Another 37 wins & 148 nominations. See more awards » Videos In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher. Director: James Mangold When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis Tom Regan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: William H.

Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Tim Robbins, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh Edit Storyline Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes.

The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested. Written by Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 22 December 2010 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Temple de acero See more » Filming Locations: $24,850,000 (USA) (24 December 2010) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Rooster refers to LaBoeuf as a "brush popper" and later as a "waddie." Those are American West terms for a cowboy. See more » Goofs When Mattie cuts the hanged man down from the tree and Rooster kicks him over so that he is lying flat on his back, his legs are crossed and his coat is half open. As Rooster stands over the dead man, Rooster's shadow falls behind him, away from the dead man. After the next scene, where the Indian on horseback approaches, no one has touched the dead man, and Rooster is standing in the same place.

But now the dead man's legs aren't crossed anymore, his coat is fully open, and Rooster's shadow falls in front of him, across the dead man's legs. See more » Quotes [first lines] 40-Year-Old Mattie : People do not give it credence that a young girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood. But it did happen. I was just 14 years of age when a coward by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down and robbed him of his life and his horse and two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. Chaney was a hired man and Papa had taken him up to Fort Smith to help lead back a string of Mustang ponies he'd bought. In town, Chaney had ... See more » Crazy Credits Buster Coen, Ethan Coen's son, is listed in the end credits as "Mr. Damon's abs double". In reality, he was an on-set assistant to the script supervisor.

See more » Connections With ‘True Grit,’ Coen Brothers Shoot Straight - The New York Times The New York Times Movies |The Coen Brothers, Shooting Straight Search Continue reading the main story Photo Jeff Bridges, left, in the role originally played by John Wayne, with Matt Damon in a scene from the new version of “True Grit.” Credit Wilson Webb/Paramount Pictures IN a couple of weeks families across the land will open their local newspapers in the secular ritual of finding a Christmas Day movie that everyone can attend. This year there will be the cringe-inducing giggles of “Little Fockers,” the sci-fi splendors of the “Narnia” franchise, an animated picnic with “Yogi Bear” and “True Grit,” a western from those nice Coen boys, Joel and Ethan . Those would be the same brothers whose dark comedies and twisted genre spoofs turned them into a fetish object for a generation of critics. The ones who created a murderers’ row of cinematic sociopaths , including Anton Chigurh, who used a coin flip to decide the fate of his victims before dispatching them with a cattle gun in the Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men” from 2007.

Both films are set in the West and feature vivid manhunts, but no one would ever mistake “No Country,” or any of the Coens’ other dozen or so films, for a Christmas movie. Loping in straight and true over the horizon comes “True Grit,” a classic western about a plucky 14-year-old who heads off into Indian country flanked by lawmen to hunt her father’s killer. How classic? The last time around, in 1969, “True Grit” won a best-actor Oscar for a guy named John Wayne . The Coens’ version brandishes wide-open adventures, grizzled hearts on the sleeve and a young heroine who is by far the biggest pistol in a film full of them. And judging by the late-in-the-year release date, the pedigree of the directors and its gilded cast — Jeff Bridges , Matt Damon and Josh Brolin — Paramount, the studio that is releasing the $35 million movie, is hoping that “True Grit” will be part of that other big gift-giving evening called the Oscars. Hollywood doesn’t revisit the western genre frequently, and does so at its peril.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” included the actors Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck but failed to find much commercial traction (although “3:10 to Yuma” did quite a bit better). At Bubby’s restaurant in TriBeCa recently the brothers momentarily resisted the notion that they made what some might see as a feel-good movie, but finally admitted it. Sort of. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “It’s not our fault,” Ethan said. “It was based on the novel. That’s the good thing about adapting novels. You blame it on the book.” The brothers, both of whom live in New York, arrived a few minutes apart, each worn from the last frantic weeks spent meeting the deadline of a holiday release. Joel set a motorcycle-scooter helmet down next to his brother’s bicycle helmet, but that was about the extent of the observable differences between the noggins of the movie business’s most famous two-headed director. They made “True Grit” not as corrective to the movie featuring an eye-patched Duke wheeling around as Rooster Cogburn but because both brothers loved the book by Charles Portis that it was based on.

The novel is narrated by Mattie Ross, a spinster who tells the story of her quest many years earlier to avenge her father’s murder by a no-account by the name of Tom Chaney. Her younger self stomps into the frame of the Coens’ film with a gift for language and figures, a vision of pigtailed precocity. “She is a pill,” Ethan said, “but there is something deeply admirable about her in the book that we were drawn to.” Joel continued the thought: “We didn’t think we should mess around with what we thought was a very compelling story and character.” Ethan stepped in: “The whole Presbyterian-Protestant ethic in a 14-year-old girl was interesting to us and sounded fun.” In “True Grit,” the Coens never let go of the fact Mattie is a child, but they don’t make her movie-cuddly either. Mattie, played by a relative newcomer named Hailee Steinfeld, uses mostly bluster and bafflement to enlist Cogburn (Mr. Bridges) and a Texas ranger named LaBoeuf (Mr. Damon) in her quest, but with dollar signs in their eyes, they sneak off without her.

Photo “True Grit” directors, Ethan Coen and, at right, Joel Coen. Credit Wilson Webb/Paramount Pictures She sets off after them but is temporarily thwarted when a ferryman refuses to carry her across a surging river as Cogburn and LaBoeuf watch in amusement from the other side. She heedlessly plunges into the river on her little black horse, hanging on as it struggles to the other side. The music swells as she emerges, dripping but triumphant, now a made member of the ad hoc posse. Serious fans of the Coen brothers could not be blamed for waiting for another shoe to drop, an ironic twist or the pop of a balloon. It never comes (although Rooster expresses admiration for the horse, not the girl who rode it across).

Fans who have become used to walking down lurid alleys full of portent and eccentrics who seem to come swinging out of nowhere may have some trouble orienting themselves among the open country and recognizable characters in “True Grit.” The Coens and their longtime cinematographer, Roger Deakins, work within visual parameters erected by John Ford, shooting a sprawling western with looming landscapes that etch the relative insignificance of the people riding across them. As in the book, the characters speak in ornate, excessively civilized ways — they make the characters on “Deadwood” seem plain-spoken in retrospect — perhaps as a bulwark against the uncivilized matters at hand. In “True Grit” justice comes swiftly but fairly, and no one ends up dead who didn’t have it coming. It is, at bottom, an emotional, even ardent, film. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I don’t think they thought a lot about how the film might land,” said Mr. Brolin, who plays the dimwitted Chaney. “We all enjoyed ourselves. Except Joel. I don’t think that’s his specialty. But they have no pretense, no expectation, and they do what they like.

The minute that people try to pigeonhole Joel and Ethan, they will end up disappointed.” After sitting down with Mr. Damon, the first thing the Coens asked was whether he had read the book. “I hadn’t, but from the first moment I talked to Joel and Ethan, it was all about the book,” Mr. Damon said. “Once I read it, I understood, because the language is amazing. So much of the dialogue that is in this movie is right out of the book.” Although it’s hard not to notice Mr. Bridges’s turn as the Dude playing the Duke with a dash of Bad Blake, much of the film rests on the diminutive shoulders of Ms. Steinfeld, a 13-year-old who was plucked from 15,000 girls who turned up at casting calls or sent taped auditions. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy “It was, as you can probably imagine, the source of a lot of anxiety,” Ethan said.

“We were aware if the kid doesn’t work, there’s no movie.” Joel added: “We only cast her three or four weeks before we started shooting the movie, and we had been looking for a long time. But that was a crucial, maybe the crucial aspect of making the film.” The brothers, who co-direct their films, which include “Blood Simple,” “The Big Lebowski” and “Fargo,” said that they wanted an actual teenager to play Mattie and that despite having only minor credits on her résumé, Ms. Steinfeld immediately demonstrated a mastery over the rococo dialogue. “It was apparent from the very beginning that Hailee was going to have no problem with the language,” Joel said. Photo Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges in Joel and Ethan Coen’s version of “True Grit,” which is due for release Christmas week. Credit Lorey Sebastian/Paramount Pictures Mr.

Bridges, who won a best-actor Oscar for his role last year in “Crazy Heart” and entered the pantheon of Coen antiheroes in 1998 as the Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” said he was charmed that the Coens had made a movie that families might line up for during the holiday season. “I guess I’m hoping that everybody sees it: western fans, Coen brothers fans, movie fans,” he said. “As an actor you want to be part of something that moves people, but is not just sentimental. I think people will be surprised to see Joel and Ethan doing a movie like ‘True Grit,’ but they believed enough in the book to just let the story speak to people.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Sitting at Bubby’s, the brothers said they were shooting the story that was on a page written by someone else, not a quirky one that was conjured in the space between them. “It is formal in the sense that it is a straightforward presentation,” Joel said. “We weren’t trying to tune it up stylistically.

When we were thinking about how to shoot the scene, the default position was more pretty, more classical.” There are some Coenesque touches amid the western classicism. Rooster and Mattie encounter a mountain man who has been roaming the hills for a long time, perhaps too long, and seems overly fond of the bear rug he wears as a coat and costume. And given that Rooster is in the habit of getting his man, usually with the assistance of a bullet, there’s a measure of retributive violence. But then again, no one is fed into a wood chipper as in “Fargo.” “The book is quite violent, but the level of violence was a consideration for us in a way that it has not been in the past,” Ethan said, in part because the PG-13 rating will open up the movie for audiences beyond their fan base.

“Some level of violence had to be in there to demonstrate the implacability of what Hattie is up against at a very young age, but compared to what you see on HBO it’s quite tame.” Scott Rudin, who produced the film, said that its formal, reverent approach to the western, a place where quests are undertaken and adventures are had, is on the screen everywhere you look. “I don’t think that Ethan and Joel did this movie because they felt that they wanted to reinvent the western or remake another film,” he said. “The patois of the characters, the love of language that permeates the whole film, makes it very much of a piece with their other films, but it is the least ironic in many regards.” Joel Coen said it was apparent from the beginning that “True Grit” might land in a place where their other films had not. “When we first approached the studio, one of the things that they wanted to know was whether we could be finished in time for Christmas,” he said.

“And after a while we thought to ourselves, if we do the movie the way that we were thinking about it, positioning it as a Christmas movie does actually make sense.” Or, as Ethan put it, “Yes, you can probably bring Grandma to this one on Christmas.” Correction: December 12, 2010 A cover article this weekend about Joel and Ethan Coen’s new movie, “True Grit,” refers imprecisely to the directing credits for their films. While the brothers have co-directed all of their movies since 1984, Ethan was not officially credited as a director until 2004, for “The Ladykillers.” A version of this article appears in print on December 12, 2010, on Page AR1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Coen Brothers, Shooting Straight. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

Question: Which directing partnership remade the film True Grit in 2010?
Answer: The Coen Brothers